Utah tightens up on liquor laws even more, hurting local businesses: Utah's liquor laws favor cheap, big brands over artisanal local ones.

• Author: Ciaramella, Elalnna

UTAH IS HOME TO some incredible homegrown distilleries, including Waterpocket Distillery, Holystone Distilling, and Hammer Spring Distillers. However, an AI inventory sales system--which makes inventory decisions based on sales trends and favors some of the cheapest, most widely available liquors and boxed wines produced by global players--makes it hard for local distilleries to compete for precious real esfate on liquor store shelves.

Additionally, hard seltzers have seen massive growth across the US in recent years. But the Utah legislature is banishing nearly half of hard seltzers from Utah grocery and convenience stores due to the additive ethyl alcohol, which essentially provides flavoring.

Alan Scott started Waterpocket Distillery in West Valley City with his wife, Julia. "We're a small 'boutique' family-owned distillery which focuses on niche products like amaro, botanical spirits, and gin," Scott says. Waterpocket currently has listings--meaning they're on the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (DABC)'s inventory list--for their Temple of the Moon Gin, Robbers Roost Blue John Port-Finished Whiskey, Robbers Roost Campsite Cordial Rock and Bourbon, and Toadstool Notom Amaro No. 1. Still, Scott has struggled to get his specialty amaros on the shelf because of their price.

"If you cannot provide a product at an often very low price to match an opening, you don't get a listing or distribution for your product," Scott says, adding that these decisions appear to be made by a software algorithm.

Waterpocket's products are specialized and produced, at least in the first years, in smaller batches. They have not been commodified to the degree large-scale commercialized products are, so the price is usually higher. "There's a good parallel here with artisan cheese, wine, charcuterie, and similar products," Scott says. "Just like there's a big difference between Velveeta and cave-aged English stilton cheese in both quality, uniqueness, and price, so it can go with craft spirits."

Scott will often talk to his customers and use the comparison that Taco Bell and Red Iguana can both be called Mexican restaurants, though they have very different business models, products, and flavors. "In some ways, I feel like the current listing process is focused on the Taco Bell model and favors the mass-produced, 'cheap as you can get it' approach," he says.

These challenges affect whether a distillery can get a good product listed at all--especially in Utah.

"The state...